MONOGRAPHS ON EDUCATION 



MORAL TRAINING 

IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS 



BY 



MARY H. LEONARD 

SOMETIiME INSTRUCTOR IN THE STATE NORMAL SCHOOL AT BRIDGEWATER, 
MASS., AND IN THE WINTHROP NORMAL COLLEGE, SOUTH CAROLINA 



BOSTON, U.S.A. 

THE PALMER CO., PUBLISHERS 

1908 



MONOGRAPHS ON EDUCATION 



MORAL TRAINING 

IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS 



BY 



MARY H. LEONARD 



/) 



SOMETIME INSTRUCTOR IN THE STATE NORMAL SCHOOL AT BRIDGEWATER, 
MASS., AND IN THE WINTHROP NORMAL COLLEGE, SOUTH CAROLINA 



BOSTON, U. S. A. 

THE PALMER CO., PUBLISHERS 

1908 



JUN 15 1908 
flo?Y a. 



Copyright, 1908 
By The Palmer Co. 



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V 



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MORAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS 

" Among national manufactures the making of souls 
of a good quality," to use a phrase borrowed from Rus- 
kin, stands preeminent. Whether the ultimate end of 
education be the harmonious developmei^t and perfec- 
tion of the individual, as declared by Kant, or the 
preparation of the individual for social efficiency, as 
maintained by many modern philosophers, it is equally 
true that the securing of moral results is the highest 
and most complete function of the school. On this 
point there is no dissent among intelligent and right- 
minded people. 

The school is not the only, nor indeed the primary, 
agency for this end. To parents first of all, and to the 
church as well, is intrusted the great task of teaching 
children to understand and perform their moral obliga- 
tions. Yet while neither the family nor the church has 
a right to neglect this task, the action of these agencies 
will always be incomplete. Multitudes of American 
children have no pure home environment, and are also 
outside the influence of church training. The school, 
moreover, has opportunities which are not given to the 
church. The poor, the immigrant population, as well as 
the great middle class of working people, though often 
holding aloof from the churches, almost always believe in 
education, and desire its advantages for their children. 
For the sake of its own stability and safety as well as 

3 



4 MORAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS 

for the good of its citizens at large, the government must 
secure to every child that moral training which is abso- 
lutely essential to the preparation for good citizenship. 
Every argument that can be adduced for the establish- 
ment of pubHc schools at all, requires that these schools 
should seek to furnish an ethical training of the highest 
type as their most legitimate and crowning end. 

But while the general aim is so plain, the method to 
be used in this vital process of enduing future citizens 
with " souls of a good quality " is not so clear. American 
civic principles, which forbid the introduction into gov- 
ernment schools of certain forms of moral and religious 
instruction sometimes used in the home and the Sunday 
school, seem to confuse the problem. There are also 
psychological elements that must be taken full account 
of in determining the methods to be employed. 

Yet among the contradictions of argument there is 
one point of agreement among all the educators who 
have addressed themselves to the subject. The moral 
teaching of the public schools, especially in the lozver 
grades, imcst be very largely indirect and suggestive 
rather than formal or didactic. 

The reasons for this lie principally in the nature of 
the child. To human nature generally, but especially to 
child nature, example is better than precept, inspiration 
is more than instruction. A good school will surround a 
child with a moral atmosphere which he breathes uncon- 
sciously, and in which his moral faculties expand and 
blossom and finally ripen into noble fruitage. 

The resources of the school which conduce to this end 
are of three general classes. First, there is the personal- 
ity and personal influence of the teacher. A teacher 
of good breeding, good temper, and moral earnestness, 



MORAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS 5 

who understands and sympathizes with the pupil, 
becomes an ideal toward which the child unconsciously 
molds his own character. Multitudes of men and 
women have testified in later life to the influence of 
an inspiring teacher who first aroused in them a love 
of goodness and truth. Among all the means which a 
school can use to produce moral results, the personal 
influence of a noble teacher stands highest, and its value 
cannot be overestimated. 

The orderly arrangement and general discipline of 
the school is also one of the chief sources of dependence 
for moral results. That the child gains his moral power 
through experience is a sound principle of educational 
philosophy. A well-ordered school cultivates in the 
pupil habits of obedience, cleanliness, order, punctual- 
ity, perseverance, self-reliance, self-respect, justice, and 
good will in dealing with one's fellows. The regular 
activities of the school ought to bring into play various 
right motives of action, and success in achieving school 
results will stir the soul to larger desires for right effort 
in the future. 

The habit of orderly thinking, which is developed 
by right methods of study, is also an aid to moral devel- 
opment. The abihty to think right is a vital element in 
learning to act right. Learning the facts of nature and 
of one's own being and the relations of these facts to 
one another is therefore a part of the great process of 
moral growth. 

Each of the several studies has its own special possi- 
biUties in this direction. Mathematics may contribute 
to habits of exactness and so to truthfulness. Grammar 
stimulates the logical faculty and emphasizes the need 
of conformity of speech to thought. Manual arts 



6 MORAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS 

awaken thoughts of practical service. The study of 
animals should incline the heart to kindness. The 
various natural sciences not only lead the pupil to con- 
form his life to natural laws, but if taught in the best 
way they will carry his thoughts beyond the mere facts 
of external nature to recognize a moral order pervading 
the universe, by which all forms of being are linked 
together, so that the soul finds itself in the presence of 
that Higher Power which is known by the name of 
God. There is such a thing as natural religion which 
the reverent study of nature awakens in the soul, and 
which is a powerful influence to moral action. 

But even larger moral possibilities are to be found in 
the studies known as the humanities. History is full of 
examples and of warnings. Music, painting, and the 
study of all the fine arts, cultivate the sense of the 
beautiful which is closely akin to the sense of the good 
and true. Through literature, especially, truth is revealed 
in multiplied forms of beauty, inspiring the heart to 
right thoughts, deep feelings, and noble impulses. 

It is true that all of these subjects may be, and often 
are, taught in such ways that they fail to add strength 
to the moral nature. They may even lend themselves 
to the stultifying of the moral impulses. Knowledge is 
a two-edged weapon. If the desires and purposes of 
the soul are evil or selfish, intellectual attainments will 
but intensify the moral perversity. Yet this does not 
alter the fact that the regular studies of the school cur- 
riculum afford an immense field for uplifting influences, 
and that through the channels of regular school work 
love of truth and goodness may be substituted for the 
sophisms of the undisciplined heart. 

How far the regular school exercises will conduce to 



MORAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS 7 

moral growth, however, depends very much on the in- 
centives that govern the schoolroom work. There are 
various incentives that may lead to correct conduct. 
All of these are proper to certain occasions, but they 
are not of equal moral value. Each of them, too, has 
both higher and lower phases of its exercise. 

Lowest among the incentives which the school may 
employ is the fear of punishment. In a good school 
this will be used but sparingly, yet to take from a 
teacher the power to use this, when other means have 
failed, is to weaken the school authority^and influence. 
Of a little higher grade among motives is the hope of 
reward, in the form of prizes, marks, grading, school 
honors, and the like. Both punishments and rewards 
are morally most effective if they are not arbitrarily 
decreed, but bear some relation to the action. Thus the 
natural penalty for carelessness is to remedy the damage 
which carelessness has caused. The best reward of 
fidelity is the conferring of some office of honor and 
trust for which fidelity gives preparation. One of the 
best rewards of school work is the approval of the 
teacher, the parents, and the fellow-students. In 
the words of another, '' The making glad through 
deserved approval is the fine art of training." 

The mere joy of active successful effort may be made 
an incentive to right action. To this may be added the 
approval of one's own conscience, the joy of duty done. 
But this, in turn, is closely allied to the love of right for 
its own sake, loyalty to an ideal of goodness, which is 
also akin to what theologians might call " love of God." 

Other motives to right action spring from right feel- 
ings towards others, feelings of justice, generosity, pity, 
affection, and general good will. Love of the teacher, 



8 MORAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS 

of the parents, of the school itself, all of these may be 
appealed to as schoolroom incentives, leading to right 
conduct and moral growth. Schoolroom conditions, 
like those in general life, being more or less complex, 
more than one of these incentives will often be active 
in a given case. It should be the teacher's effort to see 
to it that the highest and best of the natural motives to 
which the child can respond is not omitted in the mak- 
ing of a moral choice. 

In this whole matter of school incentives it is vitally 
necessary that the teacher's own conduct should be 
governed by the same high incentives that she would 
impress on the child as the controlling motives of action. 
If her chief motive in teaching is to draw a salary, if she 
is governed by caprice or partiality in her dealings with 
the pupils, if she sets aside the good of others to secure 
selfish ends, then it would be hopeless for her to expect 
to lead the children under her care to respond to higher 
motives than those which govern her own relation to 
them. 

In such a steady pursuit of regular schoolroom work 
under right incentives as has here been outlined, the 
child should not only be led to perform right actions 
and acquire right habits of action ; he should also gain 
a set of right ideals as to his own personal relations to 
the world, his duties and obligations to the school, his 
family, the town, the state, the nation, and to humanity 
as a whole. Through his school experience he should 
gain that sense of human brotherhood that will make 
him reaHze that all of us side by side are marching 
together down the way of life, and are bound to help 
one another as we go. The sense of his own private 
rights should not be lost sight of, but the recognition 



MORAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS 9 

that all others have similar rights that we must hold as 
sacred as our own should also be gained. 

But the fact that indirect means are chiefly to be 
depended on for moral training in the public schools 
does not imply that no direct words are to be spoken 
on these vital matters, or that there is to be no con- 
scious effort on the part of the teacher to bring these 
subjects to the pupil's attention. On the contrary, 
the earnest teacher will seek for opportunities to give 
definite impressions regarding the moral life. Occa- 
sions of discipline and other schoolroom happenings 
will be freely drawn upon for this end, A word in sea- 
son, at the right psychological moment, must often be 
spoken. The thoughtful question, that brings the child's 
own reason to bear upon a point that his conscience can 
respond to, will often be needed in shaping ideals of 
moral conduct. 

On the question of formal attempts at ethical instruc- 
tion in the school course many high authorities may be 
quoted, who seem to take opposing sides. Thus Dr. 
G. Stanley Hall has written : — 

" During the first years of school life a point of prime 
importance is the education of the conscience. A sys- 
tem of carefully arranged talks, with copious illustrations 
from history and literature, about such topics as fair 
play, slang, cronies, dress, teasing, getting mad, prompt- 
ing in class, white lies, affectation, cleanliness, order, 
honor, taste, self-respect, treatment of animals, reading, 
vacation pursuits, etc., can be brought within the range 
of boy and girl interests by a sympathetic and practical 
teacher, and be made immediately and practically use- 
ful. All this is nothing more or less than conscience 
building." 



10 MORAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS 

Other thoughtful educators, however, have inveighed 
against giving formal moral instruction to young chil- 
dren, declaring it to be the part of wisdom to " trust to 
instinct alone, and when this goes astray recall it." 

But the difference is more verbal than real. If by 
formal instruction is meant abstract perfunctory teach- 
ing, it is indeed to be avoided. Didactic attempts to 
teach morals in school are worse than useless, as chil- 
dren of all ages resent being " preached to." Unwise 
attempts to force abstract moral truth into children's 
minds are responsible for much of the defiance of moral 
restraint that is often manifested among young people. 
The difficulty and danger are not confined to the day 
school, but are often more conspicuously shown in the 
home and in Sunday school, where well-meaning parents 
and teachers who do not understand child nature feel it 
upon their consciences to administer advice and moral 
precepts in season and out of season, under the impres- 
sion that they are giving moral training by this means. 
It is little wonder that, under the methods sometimes 
employed in Sunday schools, many boys leave these 
schools at the age when they are most in need of 
wholesome moral influence. 

Yet it is a mistake to think that children are not in- 
terested in moral questions. On the contrary, there is 
scarcely anything that they are so much interested in. 
The moral lesson, however, must come to them in con- 
crete rather than abstract form. Children delight in 
fables, in fairy stories having a moral significance, in 
stories of real life in which the good are rewarded and 
the bad fitly punished. The moral of the story need 
not be stated in words ; the child is quick to seize upon 
the thought, and is seldom loth to express his own 



MORAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS ii 

moral conclusions on the subject. To the child's mind 
the characters of a story are usually distinctly good or 
distinctly bad. Thus in the Bible story of Sarah and 
Hagar, the latter would probably be thought of as the 
heroine and Sarah as the villain of the^ story. It re- 
quires a later stage of thinking and experience to realize 
that good and bad are mingled in complex action, and 
that the effects do not always bear immediate relation to 
the moral elements that lie beneath. 

As children grow older, the age of adolescence brings 
new problems that lead to deeper thinking, and give 
greater need and opportunity for wise and direct moral 
teaching, which must still be carefully guarded, lest it 
become too prominent and insistent. 

Boys and girls have practical questions to meet re- 
garding control of temper, temperance, dress, etiquette 
and social customs, superstitions, fear and cowardice, 
courage, honor in school life, independence, courtesy, 
benevolence, the use of money, friendships, purity, 
health, the life of feeling, and work. On all of these 
subjects right moral standards must be formed, and this 
cannot be wholly left to chance or incidental opportunity. 

Public holidays in honor of great men or great events 
give occasion for instruction in civic duties. The incul- 
cation of patriotism is a distinct aid to morality. The 
economic and business relations of the world must have 
attention. The utilitarian element is not to be ignored. 
Young people must learn the real meaning of work ; 
that the labor which is so often dreaded or avoided is 
but the natural and necessary exchange of service 
among members of the community, and that every 
honorable person will in some form or other contribute 
his share. 



12 MORAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS 

The ethical principles underlying business must be 
looked at in a practical way. It is related of Abraham 
Lincoln as a young man that once when traveling in 
the West he applied to a friend for a loan to enable him 
to reach a certain destination. The friend reminded 
him that at that moment he had upon his person various 
sums of money tied in handkerchiefs or other homely 
receptacles. ''Yes," said Lincoln, "but these are trust 
sums and not to be borrowed from." A story like this 
may serve as the text for a discussion by which a boy 
gains an impression of the sacredness of a trust, which 
in an hour of later temptation may save him from the 
crime of embezzlement. 

By some definiteness of plan in such work a school 
avoids the danger of inadvertent omission. The super- 
intendent of a large reformatory. Dr. James A. Leonard, 
of Mansfield, Ohio, in a recent address before a body of 
teachers, referred to some of the omissions in practical 
moral training that make it easy for boys to enter the 
criminal classes through ignorance of the real nature 
of certain legal crimes. He cited the case of a boy 
who, finding himself penniless and hungry, entered a 
freight car and helped himself from a store of biscuit, 
not knowing that the breaking of the insecure seal on 
the door of the car changed what seemed to him a petty 
theft into the crime of burglary. He told of another 
who, more in thoughtlessness than with criminal intent, 
copied a man's signature and was afterwards embittered 
that an act which had not finally defrauded any one 
should cause a commitment for forgery. The boy had 
never fully understood the reasons why a man's signature 
must be held most sacred before the law. 

One of the best ways to make moral teaching both 



MORAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS 13 

direct and concrete is by the study of biography. The 
Hartford Seminary ior November, 1905, has an article on 
"Lincoln — A Study in Ethics," and it is well pointed 
out that such a discriminating study of this typical 
American has a high pedagogical value as a suggestion 
of methods. After the study of an interesting life the 
question, '* Why do you admire, or not admire, this man 
or woman?" brings to the front the pupil's own life 
ideals. Much more can be done in this way than has 
usually been attempted in schools. 

Another way of consciously aiding moral development 
is by the cultivation of a good reading habit. It was 
the testimony of the superintendent of the reformatory 
above quoted, that while most of the boys sent to his care 
as criminals could read, and many of them were voracious 
readers, not one could be said to have developed a taste 
for good reading. Scarcely one would of his own accord 
read a book of history, travel, or legitimate adventure. 
Their taste for books had been fed on less wholesome 
mental food. It is the privilege of the school through 
its own library and by friendly cooperation with the 
public library to arouse the interest of boys and girls 
in books that will touch the right springs of moral 
action. 

The trend of recent educational thinking is strongly 
toward increasing the emphasis in schools upon the 
spiritual or moral side of life. One evidence of this is 
seen in the large number of new books intended to aid 
teachers in bringing moral truths before the minds of 
young people. Many series of outline lessons have also 
been prepared suggesting the material for moral instruc- 
tion adapted to different grades. At the Paris Expo- 
sition of 1900, the French Government received an 



14 MORAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS 

important prize for such a " System of Moral Instruc- 
tion " prepared for French schools. 

On the other hand, some educators oppose such out- 
lines as tending to mar the moral nature of children 
through perfunctory teaching. The dangers of text- 
book ethics for young children can scarcely be overesti- 
mated; yet that such books and outlines are sometimes 
helpful to teachers of skill and experience is beyond 
question. The fault is not with the book or outline but 
with the way it is used. It may be said that a teacher 
who can use such a book or outhne skillfully would 
probably do something effective in this line without 
such aid. But this is not an argument for suppressing 
the helpful book. The danger should be guarded 
against in some other way, and teachers who know 
how to use them should be provided with all the aids 
that can be furnished in their difficult and important 
work. 

It seems desirable that the relation of a school board 
toward the methods of moral instruction in the schools 
should be advisory rather than mandatory. It is the 
part of the board to secure teachers who are fitted to 
give moral training, to make the teachers understand 
that this is expected of them, to supply them with such 
aids as they can skillfully use in this work, but to leave 
them for the most part free to work out the problem 
according to their own best judgment. Good work in 
this line should be recognized, and cautions given to 
those teachers whose lack of discernment regarding 
delicate questions may lead them astray in such mat- 
ters. But for the most part the question of method 
should rest with the teachers, and it is largely a ques- 
tion of the teacher's own temperament how far formal 



MORAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS 15 

instruction can be added to the informal to produce 
effective results. 

At the meeting of the Religious Education Associa- 
tion in Boston, in 1905, Mr. George H. Martin, Secretary 
of the Massachusetts Board of Education, read an inter- 
esting series of papers written by children in the Boston 
grammar schools on children's duties toward parents, 
brothers and sisters, old people, etc. Some of these 
papers, written by children of foreign parents at the 
North End of Boston, seemed to show conclusively that 
American public schools, in spite of tl^eir alleged de- 
fects, are creating ideals of moral conduct in the minds 
of these young "Americans in the making" which 
argue well for the nation's future. The ethical results 
of school work shown by these papers were mostly 
achieved by indirect means ; yet the very act of writing 
the papers was in itself a formal school exercise in 
moral training. 

There are very many ways in which a tactful teacher 
may mingle with indirect training some instruction of a 
more formal character so as to violate neither good 
psychological principles nor the civic principles of the 
American school ; and the view of the best modern 
educators is that while indirect moral influence is to be 
chiefly depended on, it is desirable that it should be 
supplemented by some moral teaching of a more defi- 
nite and conscious character. 

But the chief interest in this subject does not relate 
to the teaching of mere ethics by either indirect or direct 
methods. The real animus of the public discussion 
concerns the relations of moral and religious education 
in the training of children. 



l6 MORAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS 

Is there a distinct line between secular and religious 
truth ? Can morality be separated from religion ? Even 
if this may be done in abstract thought, is it possible in 
effective moral instruction? Have not the moral in- 
stincts a deep religious basis ? And can we afford to 
have the morality taught in American schools less 
strong and deep than the very best ? Even if some 
elements of moral conduct can be taught without enter- 
ing the domain of religion, do not faith, hope, and 
charity, the things that abide, have a deeper foundation ? 
And can these be omitted from the training given in 
American schools ? 

Turning to the subjective side of the question, can 
any part of the child's nature be omitted in a course of 
training ? Will not his religious nature of necessity be 
profoundly influenced by the school course either for 
good or evil ? These are some of the many questions 
that need definite answer. 

On the other hand, is it possible to introduce any 
religious elements into the public school without violat- 
ing a fundamental American principle? The doctrine 
of the complete separation of Church from State has 
been one of the ruling ideas of the nation for several 
generations. The belief has gained large acceptance 
that since we have no state reHgion, nothing of religion 
has any place in the national policy. Certainly to the 
American mind there can be no partnership between 
politics and any particular form of religion. Unless 
there are some elements of religion that are wholly dis- 
tinct from sectarianism, and that are also needed to give 
the highest sanction to morality, religion can have no 
place in the public-school curriculum. 

The range of thought suggested by these questions is 



MORAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS 17 

very wide. In the discussions that have been aroused 
it has sometimes seemed as if the moral training of 
the schools would be crushed between the upper and 
nether millstones of secularization and ecclesiasticism. 
Teachers have sometimes felt a modesty — a false modesty, 
it might be said — in ever uttering a religious sentiment 
in the school unless in the form of a quotation ; and 
under the pressure of public opinion to prevent any 
proselyting tendency of the schools, it is to be feared 
that many teachers have found positions in the public- 
school service who by reason of lack of igioral and reli- 
gious earnestness are utterly unfitted to be intrusted 
with the training of children. 

The questions at issue are not confined to the public 
schools, however, but belong in some degree to the 
college as well. Most of the important colleges profess 
to be unsectarian in their courses of instruction. There 
is no difference in the American principle as related to 
the public schools and the state colleges, except as dis- 
similarity between child nature and that of the adult 
may make some difference in the manner of its appli- 
cation. 

It is also true that no hard and fast line can be drawn 
between schools and other governmental institutions 
which cannot, and do not, ignore the fact that religion 
is natural to the life of man in the world. A government 
that issues proclamations for days of public Thanksgiv- 
ing, and appoints chaplains for army and navy and halls 
of Congress, need not administer its public schools on 
any plan that would seem to imply atheism as the 
general religious attitude of the community. 

Nor are the difficulties in the application of the 
American principle found in the teaching of morals 



l8 MORAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS 

alone. In the teaching of history it is hard to be im- 
partial in the treatment of the Reformation and many 
other eras and events. In the field of poHtics there are 
similar dangers. The teaching of American history, 
especially the era of the Civil War, calls for a broad 
and fair-minded treatment, in which simple facts cannot 
be evaded but may be left to make their own impres- 
sion without the attitude of partisanship on the part of 
the teacher.. 

Nor are the difficulties that relate to religion in the 
schools confined to America. The controversies in 
England regarding recent Education Acts show that 
the subject has momentous and peculiar difficulties 
where there is an estabhshed church. 

In the German school system religious instruction is 
a part of every school programme, the form of religion 
taught being Lutheran or Catholic, or some other, ac- 
cording to that of the plurality of the population. But 
the Jewess who advertised in Berlin that she could 
teach any religion that might be desired is not exactly 
the type of teacher that is needed for American schools. 
A system in which pupils " take reHgion " as any other 
study suggests to a religious mind the remark of the 
theologian who said that "the German people must 
have a great deal of religion since religious instruc- 
tion in the schools has not succeeded in rooting it all 
out." 

The Irish or " compound " system of religious instruc- 
tion in schools sets apart a certain time each week in 
which all the children are taught religion by religious 
teachers of their respective faiths. Some have advo- 
cated this plan for American schools. From various 
quarters recently has been heard the plea, " Give us 



MORAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS 19 

Wednesday afternoon that we may teach rehgion to the 
children." 

There can be no objection to reducing the school 
periods if the public desire this, and parents and churches 
are not hindered from using out-of-school time for such 
reHgious teaching as they wish. Yet according to our 
national principles it is only as a basis of moral character 
that reHgious instruction has any place in public schools, 
and so far as it is needed to secure the moral character 
which is essential to good citizenship, it is needed by all 
alike. % 

The problem in America is a different one from that 
of any European country and must be judged on our 
own national basis. Some knowledge of the history of 
American schools is needed to understand fully the 
problem to be met. It will be seen that in this history 
the specific question of the use of the Bible in schools 
has figured conspicuously. This is by no means the 
main element in the problem, but it is the one that has 
aroused most controversy, and it must be taken account 
of in any conclusions that are reached regarding proper 
methods of moral instruction in public schools. 

A leading motive of the New England colonists in 
founding their early schools was that the children might 
be able to read the Word of God, and that their churches 
might have an educated ministry. Church and State 
were not at that time separate, and the Bible was 
the chief text-book of the schools. After the exile of 
Roger WilHams from Massachusetts, the colony of Rhode 
Island was founded on the principle of separation of 
Church and State ; but the idea had not yet dawned that 
the use of the Bible in schools could be considered 
sectarian. 



20 MORAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS 

About 1836 a wave of public-school interest swept 
over America. The school system of Germany was 
closely studied, schools were graded, school attendance 
was made compulsory, and normal schools were estab- 
lished. But in one respect the Prussian system had to 
be modified to suit American needs. The plan for re- 
ligious instruction could not be followed. Yet in Massa- 
chusetts and in other states, legal requirement was made 
for the daily reading of the Bible "without note or 
comment." 

Later came the tide of immigration, and religious 
sects were rapidly multiplied. Catholics soon began 
to protest against the religious exercises held in the 
schools. The difference in the versions of the Bible 
used by Protestants and Catholics added a new ele- 
ment to the controversy. Then came the cry, " No 
Bible in the schools." In some states and cities the 
reading of the Bible was forbidden by law, and in 
various localities legal proceedings were instituted to 
test the legality of such prohibition. In 1870, at the 
close of the celebrated case of Citizens of Cincinnati 
against the School Board of the city, a large book was 
published containing the arguments on both sides that 
had been presented to the court. Everywhere the effort 
was made to rid the schools of all observances that 
could by any possibility be considered sectarian, and re- 
ligious exercises, if still continued, were reduced in most 
instances to a brief formality. 

Later came the criticism that the secularized schools 
were ineffective agents for the vital work of moral in- 
struction. It was declared that religion is a funda- 
mental part of the education of any child ; and Catholics 
began to ask first for a division of the school funds, and, 



MORAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS 21 

failing in this, to establish parochial schools, and to urge 
all loyal Catholics to withdraw their children from the 
"godless" public schools and send them to schools 
where they would be duly instructed in the Catholic 

faith. 

Within a very few years the point of discussion has 
again shifted. Many Protestants as well as Catholics 
have been urging that the work of secularizing the 
schools has gone too far, and that recent glaring cor- 
ruptions in the social and business world show that 
the public schools are failing to give Adequate moral 
instruction. From some quarters the demand is heard 
that the Bible be reinstated in the schools as a needful 
means to public morality. 

Other voices are also heard in this discussion. Edu- 
cators and psychologists are declaring that " the whole 
boy goes to school," and that it is impossible to separate 
his religious nature from his other powers in matters 
of school training. Teachers of ethics and reUgion also 
are saying thaf the two departments of thought are 
closely interwoven, and that they cannot be divided 
from each other in instruction or in life if the best 
ideals of either are to be preserved. The Golden Rule 
belongs to religion and to ethics as well. It is not sec- 
tarian, and the teaching of it violates no American 

principle. 

In 1903 there was organized at Chicago, under the 
leadership of the late lamented President WilUam^ R. 
Harper, a National ReUgious Education Association, 
which announced as its purpose ''to inspire all educa- 
tional agencies with the reUgious ideal, and all religious 
agencies with the educational ideal." The trend of public 
thought is distinctly toward a more ethical conception 



22 MORAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS 

of religion, as well as a more religious conception of 
ethics as a vital power in human life. 

The idea is growing that the line between secular and 
religious interests is not so distinct as some would have 
us believe. Philosophers and theologians are trying to 
formulate anew the definition of religion. Religion is 
not theology, they tell us. It is a life to be lived. Its 
seat is in the heart rather than in the intellect. If the 
rehgious life is lived in the schools, the religious nature 
of the children will be developed. This need not tend 
toward proselytism. On the contrary, children of all 
sects should, under this influence, become more earnest 
and more loyal to their particular faiths, while at the 
same time more tolerant toward persons of other faiths. 
The school should be a unifying influence in the com- 
munity in politics and social customs, and in religion 
also. 

But while all would agree that the religious spirit is 
more important than religious belief, some would ask, 
** Must not the religious life be nourished by having the 
truths of religion presented to the mind?" Otherwise, 
where were the good of preaching, of Sunday schools, 
of religious reading, or any other agencies for religious 
instruction ? Are any truths of religion admissible to 
the schools in order that the spirit of religion may be 
nourished and the highest morality secured ? Students 
of comparative religion ask, " Are there any common 
elements which enter all religions?" And men and 
women who wish to strengthen the schools on the spir- 
itual side are seeking to find those universal elements 
of religion that can be admitted into school life without 
danger of sectarianism. 

Thus far in American school history much of the con- 



MORAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS 23 

troversy in regard to religion in schools has been be- 
tween Catholics and Protestants. At the meeting of the 
Religious Education Association in Boston, in 1905, the 
Very Rev. Thomas J. Shahan, D.D., of the Catholic 
University at Washington, gave an address on '* How 
far Catholics and Protestants are able to cooperate in 
Religious Teaching," in which he said, " We can teach 
. . . the common traditional doctrines concerning God, 
the soul, the moral law, sin, moral responsibility, prayer, 
divine providence, the divinity of Jesus Christ, the tra- 
ditional character of the Scriptures." •To this many 
social duties were also added. 

Professor Shahan did not by any means intend to 
imply that all these things can be taught in the public 
schools, and it is at once evident that this list of religious 
tenets given by a distinguished Catholic prelate as com- 
mon to the two great classes of Christian religionists in 
America, includes far more than is legitimate to public- 
school instruction. The teacher in a New York school 
who a short time ago prefaced a Bible quotation with the 
words '* As Jesus said " was criticised by Jewish citizens 
on the ground that she had tried to lend authority to 
a moral truth, itself undeniable, by reason of peculiar 
or divine authority vested in Jesus. Mistakes on the 
part of teachers will sometimes occur ; but teachers of 
the present generation are pretty thoroughly grounded 
in the American principle which forbids sectarianism in 
the schools. It would certainly be hard to prove that 
such mistakes on the part of teachers are either more 
frequent or more harmful than the various mistakes that 
are made by other government officials in all the branches 
of public service. 

But while there are limitations to the introduction of 



24 MORAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS 

religious ideas into public schools, a cursory glance at 
Professor Shahan's list will reveal some ideas that are 
common not only to Catholics and Protestants, but to 
the Jewish religion and Oriental faiths as well ; nay, 
that are so ingrained in the thoughts of universal hu- 
manity as to find recognition wherever earnest minds 
deal seriously with the facts of human existence. 

It is impossible, for instance, that the idea of God 
should be banished from human thought either within 
or without the schoolroom. The idea of God is easy to 
the child. Literature is filled with it. The whole com- 
munity is pervaded by it. It is in the air we breathe. 
If free-thinkers and atheists would prevent their chil- 
dren from hearing the name of God, they must withdraw 
them from civilization to live a hermit life. But there 
is no reason to believe that intelligent people, however 
agnostic in their own beliefs, do wish such an impossible 
condition. Disbelief is not claiming this as one of the 
'' rights of conscience." Agnostics as a class mean to 
be reasonable beings, and even to the avowed atheist 
the general idea that men call God is the highest symbol 
of moral goodness. 

It is not the province of the public school to try to 
define God, a task which neither philosophers nor theo- 
logians have ever really accomplished. But new con- 
ceptions of God in modern thought are making it 
increasingly difficult to exclude the God-idea from the 
natural life of a well-ordered school ; and to ask teachers 
to evade or to bar out from the schoolroom the name 
or the thought of God would be laying a restriction 
upon the school that is not felt in any other department 
of the national life. 

Perhaps no formulated list of the religious ideas that 



MORAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS 25 

are admissible in the public schools could ever be agreed 
upon. Nor does this seem to be necessary for the 
correct application of the principle. The religious 
conditions of schools and localities differ greatly. In 
any given community it is not usually difficult to see 
what religious elements are universal to the time and 
place. The teacher of a small school in an intelligent 
community of homogeneous faith may properly act with 
more freedom than is permissible in some other situa- 
tions. 

On the other hand, the conditions of a large city 
school may exclude some observances that are theoreti- 
cally desirable, lest the reHgious prejudices of ignorant 
people be needlessly aroused. Even weak consciences 
have their rights. But some liberty of interpretation of 
the American principle should be allowed so long as no 
rights of conscience are thereby invaded. The largest 
amount of religious teaching that would be morally 
helpful to the schools and at the same time entirely 
compatible with American principles is surely to be 
desired. Anything more than this ought as surely to 
be condemned. 

The element of the problem that is most of all the sub- 
ject of controversy is the relation of the Bible to Ameri- 
can schools. Recent critical and historical study of the 
Bible has changed the field of discussion and introduced 
new elements into the question. Yet this very Bible 
study, aided by experience, will help to clear away the 
fogs of the educational atmosphere. The Biblical 
World for January, 1906, contains an interesting sym- 
posium from college professors regarding the Bible in 
schools. Other writings on this subject have been 



26 MORAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS 

recently published, and some of the views that are 
wide-spread in the community may be summarized as 
follows : — 

1. The Bible must be studied in the schools, but only 
in an academic way. It contains many of the most 
important writings in existence relating to history, 
literature, and good morals. These cannot properly be 
excluded from a course in education. There is no rea- 
son except prejudice why any one would seek to exclude 
them. A study of the Bible that is purely objective and 
scientific is a necessary part of a school course, but its 
introduction for any other ends would be sectarian and 
improper. 

2. The Bible must not be studied at all in American 
schools. It is primarily a book of religion. To teach 
it academically and not religiously would weaken its 
influence for its own truest ends. Since its religious use 
is forbidden by civic principles, its study from a literary 
standpoint must also be excluded, lest it should lose its 
power as a book of religious doctrine and faith. 

3. Although the Bible cannot be used in the public 
schools as a book of instruction for either religious or 
academic purposes, certain parts of the Bible can be used 
with a purely devotional intent. The cultivation of the 
religious emotions and impulses by means of devotional 
writings will have an elevating effect on children ; and 
wherever these can be introduced in an unsectarian 
spirit and without arousing prejudice or suspicion in the 
community, it is a very desirable school practice, and 
entirely unobjectionable from a national standpoint. 



MORAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS 2/ 

4. It is conceivable that under ideal conditions there 
might be some use of the Bible in schools, both for 
instruction and devotion, that would be unobjectionable 
and also very helpful as an aid to moral training. 
But conditions are not ideal, and schools cannot be 
trusted to do this work. Teachers are not equipped for 
it, nor is the public ready to trust the schools in a matter 
so delicate and important. Almost any use of the Bible 
for either instruction or devotion would awaken suspicion 
and do injury to the school. The only practical thing 
under present conditions is to leave the Bible out. The 
entire separation of Church and State is a* fundamental 
principle, and requires that the schools shall be kept 
secular and that religion in all its bearings shall be left 
to the home and the church. 

5. A distinction must be made between different parts 
of the Bible. It is a collection of books written at dif- 
ferent times and for different ends. While some parts 
of the Bible are of the greatest interest and value to 
children, there are other parts that are wholly unsuitable 
to bring before their minds. Many of the Old Testa- 
ment stories are rich in historical and moral value, but 
the long genealogies, the accounts of ceremonial obser- 
vances, marital secrets, and sexual sins with which these 
are intermingled should be omitted. It is not needful 
to send children to the original sources of history, and 
the parts of the Bible used in the instruction of children 
require to be edited for the purpose. The obscure pro- 
phetic writings of the Old Testament have little of 
school interest or value. In the New Testament there 
is much that cannot be used as school material. Theo- 
logical controversies regarding the relation of Jesus to 



28 MORAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS 

God make the life of Jesus at present unavailable as a 
biographical study in school, while the doctrinal charac- 
ter of most of the Epistles renders these also unsuitable. 
Certain passages in the New Testament, such as the 
Beatitudes,, the 13th chapter of ist Corinthians, and some 
of the Parables treated simply as stories may perhaps 
be used. But there should be careful discrimination not 
only in the ways of using Scripture in schools but in the 
parts which are to be used or omitted. The rich poetry 
that is in the Bible should be made familiar to children. 
The passages that have general historical, literary, and 
moral value should be carefully selected and freely used, 
and other parts of the Bible should be let alone. 

6. While it is clear that the Bible must not be used in 
school in any sectarian spirit, yet if there is such a thing 
as an unsectarian use of the Bible, the public schools 
must not be deprived of this by any partisan form of 
legislation. Such action would itself violate the princi- 
ples of free government. 

In all these positions that have been summarized 
there is something of truth. The question is not a sim- 
ple one. There are pitfalls to be avoided, and there are 
intellectual, moral, and spiritual advantages that may be 
gained by the use of some parts of the Bible for instruc- 
tion, and under favorable circumstances for devotion as 
well. 

Some light is thrown on the general problem by the 
conditions now confronting schools in the Philippine 
Islands. Shall the Bible be used in the training of these 
new wards of the nation } That there can be no indis- 
criminate or proselyting use of the Bible is obvious ; but 



MORAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS 29 

it is equally obvious that it would be both un-American 
and suicidal to educational interests to attempt rigidly to 
bar the Bible out, or to deny its due recognition as an 
inspiring and spiritualizing force in American civilization. 

Within a few years various books of Bible selections 
have been compiled on the basis of their adaptation to 
schools. Such books are of real value. Classified 
selections are also to be found, such as. Stories for 
Young CJiildren, Stories for Older Ckildi^en, Connected 
Hebrezv History, Selections of Poetry, Proverbs or Proph- 
ecy, as well as general selections embodying moral or 
religious truths. * 

But there are other *' World Bibles " from which noble 
passages may be selected for similar ends. The books 
of other religions, the literature of hymns, the writings 
of devout and inspired souls through all the centuries, 
may all furnish valuable contributions to the resources 
of the school for its vital work of moral and religious 
training. 

It is fairly certain that the formal daily reading of 
the Bible without note or comment will never again be 
prescribed by law as a public-school exercise. But it is 
equally evident that by the principles of our national 
government the world's best treasures of poetry, history, 
and moral truth are freely at the service of the Ameri- 
can nation in its public schools. 

Amid all the complexities of this subject one fact 
shines out with increasing clearness. The efficiency of 
moral training in the schools rests finally in the hands 
of the teacher. Given a teacher who is wise enough, 
and morally and religiously earnest enough, and she can 
teach morals, and in some true sense religion, too, in the 
public schools without violating any American principle. 



30 MORAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS 

Rules prescribing the use of definite religious exercises 
will not aid her particularly; nor can rules forbidding 
the same prevent her from accomplishing the main im- 
portant end. It is the spirit and wisdom and skill of 
the teacher that will determine the result, and not any 
outside law. 

Teachers can do this work more easily, however, if 
the community has rational views on the subject, and 
if school supervisors have clear ideas as to what ought 
to be expected, and are willing to aid and encourage the 
teachers to work out the problem somewhat in accord- 
ance with their own ideas and temperaments. Some 
general plans of work that lend a degree of uniformity 
to the schools of a given city may be desirable. But 
within the general outline, the teacher needs large 
liberty of individual action. 

The teachers themselves, however, need to realize 
their obligations in this matter, and also the conditions 
under which the work must be done. Teachers' train- 
ing schools have a responsibility to disseminate among 
the teachers a knowledge of the right principles of 
action ; and in the selection of teachers school officers 
should take into account fitness for this important work. 

But what is the present status of American schools in 
this respect ? Are the teachers giving effective Moral 
Training in the public schools ? 

The teachers of America as a rule are an intelligent 
and also a religious class. Hundreds of thousands of 
them are active workers in the church, the Sunday 
school, and in other lines of religious or philanthropic 
endeavor. The same spirit which they show in these 
other labors. they take into their schoolrooms, and they 
are honestly trying to educate the children under their 



MORAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS 31 

care in body and in soul so thiat they may live right- 
eously, healthfully, happily, and usefully, as good citi- 
zens of this great republic. They are not teaching sec- 
tarianism, and they know better than to do so. 

They are not as a rule talking much about moral and 
religious teaching, and it is well that they should not talk 
much about it. Members of the pulpit and the press, who 
are doing most of the talking, are sometimes much ex- 
ercised over the moral lapses in the community which 
apparently should have been prevented by the moral 
training given in the schools. But they should not fail 
to consider that these moral failures, though frequent 
and conspicuous and deplorable, do not of themselves 
represent the results accomplished. It is the great 
number of generally upright, industrious, right-minded 
men and women, engaged in various trades and indus- 
tries, who are the chief product of the public schools ; 
and in the words of President Roosevelt, " The average 
American is a pretty decent sort of fellow." 

It may fairly be maintained that the public-school 
teachers of America in relation to their crowning work 
of Moral Training for American citizens are as a class as 
well equipped and faithful and successful as any other 
large body of public workers, whether in or outside of 
the government service, and that they may in the main 
be trusted for the future. 

That the public schools are imperfect in this and in 
all other departments of their work the teachers them- 
selves should be the first to acknowledge. The public 
has a right to hold the teachers to high standards of 
efficiency in this vital matter. Words of criticism that 
are sometimes heard should be of value to the schools 
and teachers. Some of the practical questions relating 



32 MORAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS 

to the subject are at present unsettled. There is still 
much to be learned. Discussion of these things should 
go on, in the pulpit, in the public press, and in gather- 
ings of teachers everywhere. Not only the school 
officers and teachers, but all leaders of thought, and 
public-spirited men and women everywhere, should read 
and listen and hold intelligent opinions on the subject. 

But to teachers themselves is given the supreme 
opportunity. There is set before them ''an open door, 
and no man can shut it." Let them go forward cour- 
ageously, with open mind and earnest spirit, willing to 
learn from all sources, desirous to use, yet not misuse, 
all right means and methods, and so carry to its highest 
efficiency in full accordance with our national life the 
great work of Moral Training in Public Schools. 



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